


On the Great Efficacy of Gingerbread

by Verecunda



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 16:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11513373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/pseuds/Verecunda
Summary: Mr Strange discovers the favourable effect of sweets upon his tutor's mood.





	On the Great Efficacy of Gingerbread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerdeluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdeluce/gifts).



> For a nice anon on tumblr (who has since revealed themselves), who requested Jonathan trying to cheer Norrell up with food (especially sweet food).
> 
> Thanks to Mr Frederick Nutt and his book _The Complete Confectioner_ for inspiration on Regency goodies.

Mr Norrell was out of humour. This was not perhaps so very surprizing in itself - indeed, most people who met him reckoned that they had never known him to be _in_ humour - but for Jonathan Strange, some six months into his apprenticeship, there was a nice, but very definite, distinction between his tutor’s usual manner, and his being unusually put out.

It was the latter he observed now, as he sat in the library of Hanover-square making notes from Chaston. Out the corner of his eye, he could see that Mr Norrell was in a state of some abstraction: he shuffled in his chair, sniffed loudly, declaimed against the noise of traffic in the square in even more querulous terms than usual, and altogether made himself so conspicuous that at last it became quite impossible for Strange to fix his attention upon Chaston, and he was compelled to ask, “Is something the matter, sir?”

Mr Norrell looked up, took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, and in a rather thick voice replied, “I regret, Mr Strange, I believe I am not quite well.”

Again, this was not an especially surprizing declaration, for Mr Norrell was regularly seized with colds and headaches. Strange had not quite settled in his mind whether this particular constitution of his tutor’s owed more to genuine illness or imagination, but looking at him now, he was inclined to accept Norrell’s opinion. His face was pale, with a clammy sheen across his brow; his eyes were dull and darkly shadowed; his nose was red; he shivered and sniffed. An air of great despondency hung about him, and all in all he cut such a sorry figure that Strange’s heart softened to look at him.

“A chill, sir?”

Mr Norrell nodded. “I am persuaded I caught it at Sheerness.”

Strange nodded. Of all their trips on behalf of the Admiralty, that had certainly been one of the most dismal, consisting chiefly of grey seas and grey rain, with a wind that had sliced right through them whilst they toured the dockyard. Indeed, when he had returned home afterward, he had stacked the fire in the parlour as high as it would allow, and had drunk an unconscionable volume of both hot tea and brandy to get the chill of the Nore out of his bones. He was not at all surprized that Mr Norrell should have caught cold.

“Perhaps you ought to rest, sir?” he said gently. “I have no objection at all to breaking off the lesson for today.”

But this suggestion served only to increase Mr Norrell’s distress. “Oh, no, Mr Strange! Chaston’s _De Natura Orbium Coniunctorum_ is such a very complicated bit of theory, and I am most reluctant to break off at this point. No, no, that shall not be necessary.”

He did, however, consent to send word to Lord Mulgrave and all his other engagements, postponing them until he was recovered. Strange, meanwhile, took it upon himself to dismiss Lascelles and Drawlight. Lascelles went grudgingly, with a great shew of suspicious reluctance, but Drawlight was happy to escape any potential contagion, and left at once.

Left alone, with no urgent business hanging over him, Strange had expected that Mr Norrell might relax. But his discomfort only seemed to grow. He shivered miserably, but scarcely ten minutes after Hannah came to build up the fire, he complained of being too hot. Then, naturally, barely had Strange opened a window than he began to complain of the cold again.

“Perhaps you might explain this chapter, sir?” said Strange, hoping that a discussion on magic might cheer his master long enough for him to forget his discomfort.

But even this had not the desired effect, as Mr Norrell was increasingly ill-tempered and thus increasingly inclined to find fault, and at one point he embarked upon a fractious and somewhat confused digression upon the pernicious character of dryads and Glasgow linen-merchants (the connexion between the two was entirely obscure to Strange, and fated to remain so).

After some time, Strange felt himself at the point of despair. Mr Norrell was tiresome in his invalid peevishness, and he could feel his own stock of patience (never very liberal) running out. He had no great experience of dealing with sick persons. When Arabella had a rare headache, he was accustomed to take her head in his lap and rub her temples, but somehow he considered that this would not do with one’s tutor! He wished Childermass was here, for surely he would know how best to handle Norrell in this situation, but as misfortune would have it, Childermass had left for a book-sale in Chichester that same morning, and he was entirely on his own.

“Come, sir,” he said at last through gritted teeth, “why don’t we have some tea?”

Mr Norrell was reluctant to leave off his abuse of the Scottish textile industry, but even he had to allow that he was tired, and they took their usual seats before the fire. Norrell fretted and fidgeted, but after Lucas came up with the tea tray, he seemed to settle a little.

Indeed, it seemed Strange had hit upon the right strategy at last, for as they drank their tea and the afternoon progressed, Mr Norrell’s fidgeting ceased and his mood lightened considerably. He no longer had the strength for discoursing at any great length, but he listened to Strange’s opinions on Chaston with a drowsy smile upon his face, interposing here and there with some short observation of his own. He even recommended that Strange take away Longfellow’s _In the Garden of Infinite Wisdom_ to read, even though just the other week he had expressed the firm view that it was not a work that any novice ought to tackle until he had at least two or three years of study behind him.

Strange was inclined to wonder a little at this complete change in Mr Norrell’s mood, until he reached absently for another biscuit with which to finish his tea, and found nothing but a few scattered crumbs. He frowned. The plate had been liberally stocked, but though he himself had only had two of the little rolled wafers, it was now entirely bare.

He glanced at Norrell, who was in the act of brushing crumbs from the front of his banyan with a smile, and something in the nature of a theory formed in his mind.

The next morning, he left home a little earlier than usual, and made a detour to Mr Gunter’s shop in Berkeley-square. He had put a great deal of thought into his purchase, for he knew Mr Norrell abhorred any sort of cake or sweet that contained fruit (he had seen him, more than once, regarding a slice of plum-cake with a suspicious eye, and diligently picking it apart to extricate any lurking raisins, to the great mortification of whichever lady was presiding as their hostess). Nuts, however, were more acceptable, provided they were ground very fine. In the end he settled for something simple, and purchased six pennyworth of gingerbread, which he carried wrapped in paper to Hanover-square, and directed Lucas, who admitted him, to have taken down to the kitchen so he and Mr Norrell might have it with their afternoon tea.

Mr Norrell appeared worse than yesterday. He spent the morning with his face half-buried in his handkerchief, and his spirits were accordingly low. He grumbled over the posset which Dido had made up for his cold, but he brightened considerably when they sat down to tea and he saw the gingerbread on the plate.

“I brought it over this morning,” explained Strange, grinning at the sight of his tutor’s own wide smile. “I thought it might cheer you a little. They do say ginger is excellent for colds - Mrs Strange swears by it. I confess, I do not know if ginger _bread_ is considered to have the same efficacy, but I cannot see that there is any harm in trying it.”

Mr Norrell’s face glowed with pleasure, and he was already reaching for a piece. “That was most kind of you, Mr Strange. Thank you. I am so very obliged to you.”

And indeed, after eating the better part of the plate, he appeared so happy and contented that, as before, he forgot all about his ill humour. He drank his posset with a good will, then spoke quite cheerfully to Strange about Chaston and Longfellow until he grew tired and dozed off in his chair, wrapped in an extra blanket like a little pudding. Strange took advantage of the peace and quiet to return to his own notes on Chaston, but he could not help sending an indulgent smile or two at his sleeping tutor over the top of his book.

Over the next few days, they established a little routine, with Mr Norrell laid low by his cold, and Strange offering succour in the form of sweetmeats. After the gingerbread, he brought pound-cake, then jam tartlets, then orange-flower biscuits, all of which went down very well with Dido’s posset (to say nothing of a pot of chocolate afterward). Mr Norrell’s delight in these treats was so evident, and his gratitude so sincere, that Strange found himself quite moved. And indeed, their breaks for tea were so pleasant and convivial that he found himself greatly anticipating them. Even as the days passed and he began to suspect that his tutor was now somewhat exaggerating his symptoms in order to prolong these treats, he was quite pleased to enter tacitly upon the conspiracy. He was, it must be owned, growing quite fond of spoiling Mr Norrell.

A period was at last put on this interlude when Childermass, having returned from Chichester, met him at the door one morning, cast a look at the package of pistachio prawlongs in his hand, offered him a sardonic smile, and said, “Is it your intention, sir, to rot the teeth out of his head?” Rather abashed, Strange muttered something about congratulating Mr Norrell upon his recovery, and he could not deny that he was a little sorry for it when their teatime confection returned to the comparative plainness of ratafias and wafers.


End file.
